


yes, I will

by forpeaches (bluecarrot)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Children, F/M, Jaime is not unproblematic but at least he didn't marry anyone, LOTS OF ANGST is what i'm saying, Marriage, Modern Era, Non-Graphic Violence, Old Flames, Poor Life Choices, Winterfell, and things that happened there, i guess??, it's like a town? a city? something like that, mostly on Brienne's side, the author handwaves over canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:20:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28592427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/forpeaches
Summary: it's been ten years, and Jaime goddamn Lannister looks exactly the same.(via a prompt by Seethemflying.)
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 10
Kudos: 82





	yes, I will

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SeeThemFlying](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeThemFlying/gifts).



> written 05 - 06 January 2021.

Hyle is snoring again.

The noise wakes her up from an unsteady sleep, swimming through distant and fractured dreams, to stare at the curve of his back, his shoulders, his neck, the dull brown of his hair turned a duller shade. She can just make out the pink of one ear, vibrating.

Outside the world is black and grey and brown. Isolated puddles of brilliance hang below the streetlamps, and — she sees it without turning her head — a faint purple line seeps upwards in the east.

Brienne rolls on her back, puts her fingers over her eyes. It's later than she feels, later than her body’s clock says. Six years and she still can't get used to living here on the high meridian. I hate the fucking North. 

She didn't always hate it. She’d loved Winterfell, loved the city, loved the snow, loved —

“Brie? S’wrong?”

“Anna’s awake,” she says. “Nightmare, maybe.”

“Mm.” He is asleep again, if he’d woken in the first place. So she rises up and goes to the other room.

Sleeping there and all hunched up are the children. She puts a hand on one and feels the little body rise and fall with its breathing, heat rising. Children are like furnaces. She has to bite her tongue all the time to keep from yelling Put your coat on Wear a scarf Where are your mittens, did you lose them again? remembering how she had been at that age: never feeling tired or worried, never uncertain. Watch me jump, Galladon had said. Brie, watch. And he’d jumped off the cliffside into the glittering morning, seeming to hang in mid-air a moment, seeming almost to fly.

Even after Galladon died she had gone on jumping leaping twisting trying. She found an old sword and learned to use it; she found a running group and counted miles passed below her sneakers. Her father never told her to stop, he only asked her to use her mind - her good native sense - as much as her body. What’s seven, fifteen times? How do you find the height of a tree without climbing it or cutting it? If most rulers are men, what does that mean? 

Ask questions, he’d said. Ask questions of yourself and your world. Figure things out and then you’ll know what to do.

She’d always assumed that would be true forever.

  
Morning routine: a dozen dozen little rituals. She can do them without thinking, almost without looking, which is a blessing when her mind is busy and a curse when her own stillness haunts her. Today it is somewhere between the two, an uneasy balance that echoes so much else. Coffee, then wake the girls, then wake Hyle. Clean the dishes while he showers; help the children dress while he eats. Give them choices from a pre-determined set of options. What is it today? Red or purple? Leggings or trousers? Boots are mandatory (this is for Alys) and so are socks (Johanna); everything else can be negotiated.

In truth, everything can be negotiated: but she does not tell this to the children. The park? she says. Or the godswoods?

The godswoods, they say, a noisy crowd of two.

At least on this, Brienne agrees.

The godswoods are old and overgrown. Whatever heartstree grew there once was long since dead: died on its own perhaps if such trees die, or cut down if they don’t. She doesn’t know — these gods are not her gods, if they still live at all — but she likes to walk here, likes to look at the snow along the branches and twigs, clinging to the dead leaves. It reminds her of —

Nevermind.

And for a while, the forest is alive with children’s voices.

There are decisions that cannot be unmade. There are Yes-es that can’t be changed to No, afterward. She said Yes to Jaime Lannister once, at Winterfell — with her eyes and her chin and her patience at first, and then his hand was between her legs and his mouth was there too, and then she couldn’t stop saying Yes to him. 

She couldn’t stop, back then. Yes, she’d said, and You, and I only want, and More.

Like this? Jaime had said. He looked — frightened. The great roaring lion reduced to a mewling newborn cat, blind and groping, how couldn’t he see what she wanted by looking at her? Why couldn’t he credit it?

I love you, he’d said after the first time. He had thought she was asleep. I love you, Brienne. 

Wonder in his tone, and grief. Poor man: he hadn’t know it until then.

She couldn’t remember a time before she’d loved Jaime. Oh, she remembered hating him; she remembered how he mocked her and called her names, horrible words that seemed worse because he was beautiful beyond sense and therefore he must be right — wasn’t that the gift of beauty, to be believed? And to be loved.

He hadn’t really hated her, despite the jeers. Her face was her own fault, the choice made her beneath contempt, so he only called her a dog and a cow and a beast and a great lumbering ox, — and when a gang jumped her and dragged her off, there on the grounds of Winterfell, Jaime had heard her voice echo between the buildings. He’d come running in like some knight, all golden righteousness.

It didn’t save him from being beaten within an inch of his life. It didn’t save his hand — the tiny bones crunched under a boot like leaves. 

We could rehab, the doctor said. It would take some time, and you’ll never regain full use.

Or? said Jaime. What's my other option?

Or we can amputate.

Cut it off, he said, and shut his eyes. Cut it off and let me go home.

It was Brienne who drove him home from the hospital — Brienne who insisted on sleeping on his couch for a full week while they figured out what he could still do and what he could learn to do and what things were just memories. She was the one who held his hair while he vomited into the toilet, his body not yet used to the pain medication, and she was the one who held him while he shook and cried and swore and vomited again and again when the pain meds were deemed unncessary and he was cut off without warning. Let me die, he’d sobbed. Let me go.

No.

Why not?

You haven’t kissed me yet, she’d told him. I can't go on without your love — making sure her voice sounded dry, bored.

Jaime laughed, as she knew he would; and he didn’t take her seriously, as she knew he wouldn’t.

Her feet are getting cold, despite the boots and handknit socks; she stomps to keep warm. “Girls?”

They hear her. Pause. Wave. They’re easy to spot, these bright figures in the snow.

“Time to go in, please.”

Predictably they whine for ten more minutes, five more minutes, one more? and Brienne agrees, as she’d planned to do, and she lets the time slip by just watching them. Childhood is so brief. Have another few minutes of it, darling.

Hyle isn’t quite home when they come in, and so there’s a little bit of peace. She bustles around making hot chocolate, remembering that ritual too, the old ratio: one spoon chocolate, two sugar, three glug milk ... The children are arguing of course, but not in any way that demands attention; Brienne flips through phone messages. Robocalls, most of them. Selling windows, selling politicians, selling —

_I dont know if this is your same number but I’d meet for coffee if you’re game_

It would be so easy to ignore this. Her finger hovers over Delete. There’s no name, no identifying remarks. He’s always so careful.

Almost always.

And she should be careful, she should delete it, she does delete it (I’m married I have children it’s been years don’t do this don’t do this don’t do it)

— but late at night, with the house asleep, she types in his number from memory. _Maybe I don’t like coffee anymore_

 _Anything at all that you want is yours,_ he writes back

and it's like he has his hand on her again, fingers spread wide against the skin of her chest: Anything, Brienne. Say the word.

She can't remember how that moment ended but she remembers him precisely; it's remembering herself.

 _I'm free tomorrow,_ she sends

and deletes the messages, so there's nothing at all to see.

Jaime Goddamn Lannister looks exactly as he did the last time she saw him, and that's the first shock; the second is how much he's changed. All the little details of his face have deepened, shifted. Grey is laced in his hair and lines tug at his mouth.

She doesn't know what he sees when he sees her -- doesn't want to know. She's shaking even to pay for her drink, even to sit across from him. This is such a bad idea.

He doesn't start in with the How-have-you-been and Gosh-you-don't-look-a-day-older. He's not looking at her at all. He's picking at the skin around his thumb. "So, I guess you're wondering --"

"I'm married," she says.

Something shifts in his careful expression. "Oh. So --"

"I have kids."

That hits harder. He moves his right arm under the table -- he never did like people fussing at the stump -- and looks her in the face, and smiles. "You assume I'm gonna ask you to run away with me, Tarth?"

"You assumed I'd go?" she says. Soft. Takes a drink of whatever she bought. It's too hot, she burns her mouth. Good. She deserves to burn for what she's doing. What she wants to do. How can he bring her to the edge like this, just being near her? Just looking at her.

He runs his hand through his hair. "It's been a long time. I haven't been near Winterfell since ..."

Since you left me. Yes. She nods. "You're in Kings Landing?"

"Only visiting. Tyrion lives there now, he runs some sort of master intel for the royals, working on ... You're not listening, Ms Tarth. What have I done to deserve this sort of inconsideration?"

Ms Tarth indeed. "You need a list?"

No flinching. He's steady. "It's been ten years."

"Yeah."

"You're married. You have kids."

"I am. I do. -- You don't even want to know his name?"

Jaime shakes his head. Starts to speak; reconsiders. "Is he good enough for you?"

"Well," she says. "He's never left me alone and crying in the snow while I beg him to stay with me. So there is that."

There's nothing to reply and so he doesn't answer anything at all: she's a little disappointed, a little grieved. Jaime has grown up. She never really thought he would. Did it happen all in a motion, like it did in that hospital room? Or was it slow and halting as giving birth?

The cafe moves around them, its own universe.

"I won't ask you to stay with me," he says. "I know that you won't -- that you can't. But I -- I," fumbling. "I will ask that you come with me, Brienne. I have a place."

No, she tries to say. I'm married. I won't cheat on Hyle. I won't do that to the girls. Jaime Lannister, you asshole, it's been ten years and you waltz in here like -- 

But he didn't do that at all, did he? He's not confident and cocksure. He's actually trembling, there are fine tremors all along the edges of his profile, his mouth is streaked with blood where he's been chewing at it. And he hasn't touched her. Not once.

You deserve a better man, he'd said to her that night. You deserve someone else ...

I don't, she'd insisted: and when he still shook his head, she told him I don't care what you think I deserve, goddammit. I want you. I want _us_. 

It was true then. It's true now.

Okay, she tries to say, and her voice dries in her throat so it's only a raven's croak: Yes. I will. Yes.

*

She expects the room to be a suite, some Northern version of a penthouse, but Jaime unlocks the door to a modest --

"An apartment?" 

"Weekend rental." He still looks -- shy. Embarrassed. "Brienne. We don't have to ... we can just talk."

She doesn't have anything to say to him. "You think I came here to talk?"

He shuts his eyes and that's enough, that's it, she can't stand on this swordspoint any longer: she kisses him, and they both fall.

Hands pull apart clothes, he's saying her name, trying to bite down on her neck; his trousers are off and hers are still on, snagged on one shoe, when he goes inside her. No, she thinks, I wanted to do that, -- but there's time, now, to linger. He nudges her legs apart further with his wrist and sinks in that last little bit and suddenly it's like he never ran back to his sister and she never tore apart her life in grief for him; they're young and whole and desperately in love, and they have forever to spend together. They have all the time in the world.

After Jaime is finished -- and Brienne hasn't -- she pushes him away and sits up. It was a gentle enough shove, she thought, but he looks hurt anyway. Those goddamn Lannister emotions. 

"Brienne?"

She should leave him here, like this. Naked and soft, smelling of sex. A quick pump and a hard thump, she wants to say, that's all this is. He'd deserve it -- and she would, too.

Instead she tugs the tangle of her clothes free, finds a blanket at the foot of the bed, and comes back to cover them both. Lays down.

"You didn't come," he says, as if orgasm is something she should expect. An entitlement. "I forgot, I was caught up in ... I'm sorry."

You can make it up to me, she wants to say, and Double or nothing next time, and I missed you so fucking much, and Please don't ask me about Hyle.

He smiles at her. "I could fix that." Sleepy, content. Drifting. 

She can fix that; she feels all edge. "Are you married?"

"Hells, Brienne!"

"Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Kids?"

"No."

"You didn't go back to --"

"Yes, I did." He shifts his body away from hers; he rubs his face. "You know I did, and it was a mistake. We ended up ... I was miserable. It was only fighting, constantly fighting for a couple of years. Every day I wanted to go back to you, and I didn't, because I'd left you like that and I thought you would hate me for it."

No. She'd never hated him. She had only hated herself. Setting goals that punished her body, setting limits to punish her mind. Falling into bed with Connington and Blackwater and then Hyle, who was so blandly normal that he seemed like a reasonable middle ground. A mature choice. Her father was there to walk her into the sept and down the aisle, and then when he spoke wistfully of grandkids she managed to give him that, too -- Johanna was born and he held her daughter, in arms too weak to hold his own.

I love you, daddy, she'd said, through a mouthful of tears.

And he smiled at her. You're a good girl. A smart girl. You deserve, he said: and then the coughing was back, and it didn't subside.

"You were right," says Jaime now. "I thought about that a lot."

"-- What?"

"In the hospital. You were right about my hand. Some things can't be resolved, they need to just be ended. It was the same thing with Cersei -- I see that now. I should have listened to you, and ... cut it off."

She stares at him. "I didn't say that."

"You did. -- You did! I remember it. You think I'd forget it? You changed my entire life. I was lying there and," he takes a deep breath, "I was saying that I couldn't go on, that I'd rather die, and you called me a moaning upmarket coward who gave up after he had one taste of the real world -- you did, Brienne. You _did_. You had a black eye and you'd bit clean through your lip, it was crawling with those fat black stitches -- it was a day or two after the attack and you hadn't left my bedside, not even to change your goddamn clothes, not even to shower. You smelled like fear and sweat and adrenaline and I'd never seen anything like you in my entire life, and I realized that if I had to give up a hand to keep you around, it was a good bargain."

"Don't. Don't say things like that. I can't leave Hyle. I can't run away with you. I shouldn't have done even this much." She's crying again, and it's awful: she hates crying. "I have a life. It's messy and it's not perfect and maybe I could have done better, but I'm settled now. I can't just go jumping off cliffs for you anymore -- because you showed up. I can't take those risks. I'm too old for this shit. All this romance, and -- and torrid affairs. This was a mistake. I can't be with you. I can't stay."

Stay with me, she'd said to him all that time ago. Jaime, don't leave. She can hear her own voice even now, though it's been years -- years. 

Anything you want is yours, he'd said -- and gave it to her.

"I'm not asking you to stay," says Jaime: and it's impossible, but he might be crying too. "I know you can't. I know that. I -- I only wish that you would."

"Well, alright," says Brienne. She takes a deep breath. Steady, ready, go. Watch me fly. "In that case, yes. I will."

**Author's Note:**

> \- a gift for Seethemflying, who asked for it, and presumably knows my style enough not to be horrified at what i did to their prompt, which (now that i'm rereading what they actually said) is not really what i wrote at all I AM SO BAD AT THIS SHIT. MY APOLOGIES
> 
> \- the smell of adrenaline is a real thing! it makes me sick to my stomach! last time i went for a tattoo, the shop absolutely reeked of adrenaline. i gagged walking in
> 
> \- speaking of piercings, Jaime has a nipple piercing here. i didn't put it in the story because it was derailing the plot like you would not believe, but it happened in his halcyon days with Cersei and he keeps it around as a reminder of how he makes immature decisions, and also because he thinks it's totally smokin' hot on him and he thinks being vain is funny. Brienne thinks he is stupid


End file.
